Her older sister, the teacher, and younger brother, the business school grad, left the Windsor area to find jobs in their fields, but Meagan Klyn, the registered nurse, was hired right out of university by a local hospital.

“I think I was at the right place at the right time,” said the 24-year-old who works in Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital’s intensive care unit.

Maybe, but nursing grads have a pretty good track record of finding work in their field, even if it’s not always the area they may have wanted or full time. Many who want to stay in Windsor cross the border to the Detroit area where full-time hospital jobs are more plentiful.

A lot of students in Klyn’s class at the University of Windsor dropped out after the first two years of nursing school. Starting in second year, nursing students have to do work placements and it helps them decide whether the field is for them, she said.

“It’s very emotionally demanding. It’s also physically demanding.”

She likes the fast pace and steep learning curve in the ICU, where she did her final placement in fourth year university. Shortly before she had graduated she was offered a part-time job and the following year she was able to step into a full-time position.

Klyn still considers herself a rookie in the ICU, but already knows she will take further training.

“I knew nursing would be a good foundation no matter what else you do,” she said. For those who want to travel it is a skill in demand around the globe. More education can lead to jobs like nursing instructor, nurse practitioner, nurse manager and physician assistant.

Even before nursing school there are ways to find out if the field is for you, said Shauna Carter, who graduated from nursing school in 2002 and has since gone on to become a nurse practitioner. “I think you should look at shadowing and volunteering to make sure your heart is in the right place. If it’s not, you’re going to burn out.”

When Carter, 34, looks back she can see how her early fascination with all things medical was leading her into nursing before she even knew it. In high school she volunteered at Hotel Dieu and St. John Ambulance. She started in biology at the University of Windsor but switched to nursing after her second year.

While still at school she worked in nursing homes, for the Association for Persons with Physical Disabilities and a home health care company – all in non-nursing jobs.

After becoming a registered nurse she was hired full-time at Hotel-Dieu Grace and also had a casual position doing home care. In 2007, she began studying to become a nurse practitioner. The extra training nurse practitioners take allows them to work more independently making diagnosis, writing prescriptions for non-narcotic drugs and ordering certain diagnostic imaging tests.

For more than three years Carter has been part of a nurse practitioner lead outreach program run out of Hotel-Dieu’s emergency department that is reducing ER visits by nursing home residents. Carter and three other nurse practitioners go to eight Windsor area nursing homes several times a week to see patients whose medical problems can often by nipped in the bud when caught and treated early.

One weekend a month Carter, in her role with the Victorian Order of Nurses, also goes to Pelee Island to see patients who have no doctor there.

“I really enjoy it,” she said. “It’s great having the autonomy but you’re still a nurse at the end of the day.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a series about those in their 20s and early 30s finding a place in the local workforce.

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